High speed pursuit of a drunk driver called off after police cars rammed four times

The six minute chase started when the Peugeot van driver ignored a request to stop in Bloxwich Lane, Willenhall, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Garner – who had just broken a year without alcohol and knew he was over the limit – immediately accelerated into the distance, said Mr Geoffrey Dann, prosecuting.

The defendant reached up to 70mph in a 30 zone, careered through red lights and tore round blind bends on the wrong side of the road at 10pm on December 18.

Several motorists were forced to swerve to avoid an accident while an officer narrowly missed being run over when the van was suddenly thrown into reverse after being boxed in by two police cars.

Garner rammed one of them and headed off onto narrow side streets with speed bumps, hurtled over a hump back bridge so fast that the wheels of his vehicle came off the ground before ramming a second police car three times, explained Mr Dann.

Mechanic Garner abandoned the van soon afterwards but it was quickly spotted by police patrols and a dog unit found him hiding nearby.

Mr Jonathan Storey, defending, said: "He is ashamed of his behaviour on, what he has described, as an evening of madness. He has been profoundly stupid.

"He is very relieved that nobody was injured."

Garner, from Rudge Close, Willenhall pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, having neither insurance nor a licence and refusing to take both an alcohol or drug test.

He was jailed for 15 months and banned from driving for five years and nine months.

Judge Barry Berlin told him: "You rammed police cars four times in an effort to disable them and your driving was so utterly dangerous that the officers had to give up the chase, which must be very unusual."